Scattered postings from a hitchhiker's travel journal

The journey; on the road to the digital networked society

Newspaper futures: stern warning from an unlikely place

The Guardian is, arguably, the most webcentric of UK newspaper groups. So when editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger told a conference in Germany that quality journalism is now a ‘broken model’, it resonates more strongly because of where the voice comes from. In characteristic style Rusbridger didn’t mince his words: ”bad things are going to happen where newspapers are going to die”. This is a bad thing for everyone: strong independent journalism remains a critical counterbalance in liberal democratic frameworks. Chew on this: the waves from the collapse in the economics of news media will reach much wider than their tumbling stock prices.

Milestones

Broadband battle with US UK penetration of fast broadband connections slips ahead of US for first time.

Silver surfers swell Almost two out of every three of those coming up to retirement in the UK are online; double where the UK was in just 2001

9% of China online And with vast growth rates to match it's not hard to understand why every dot com is looking East right now.

Blogtastic 1 new blog created every second as blogging goes mainstream.

The magic billion Crossing the threshold of '1 billion people' now online worldwide.

Beethoven rocks the house 1.3m downloads of Beethoven tracks, making him 1-9 in the download chart. Thanks to BBC Online the stereotype of music being just for kids gets blown apart.

Ebay addicts More than £4bn traded on eBay here this year, accounting for 1.3% of UK sales and an average of £3,000 per trader; latest news – the tax man’s interested in a slice!

Broadband Britain Finally broadband home access outweighs dial-up, but spare a thought for the poor folks still on dial up.

Navigators

"The future of advertising is the internet"Bill Gates 27/10/05

"It is happening now and is strong, rapid and large. [And there’s a] tremendous violence in traditional media as it continues to get displaced by digital."Sir Martin Sorrell, 27/10/05

"What is happening is a revolution in the way young people access news. Unless we awaken to these changes, which are quite different to those of 5 or 6 years ago, we will, as an industry, be relegated to the status of also-rans."Rupert Murdoch, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 13/04/05

Smallprint

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